Work comp and carpal tunnel surgery

Work comp and carpal tunnel surgery

If you feel your case of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is caused by work, then you need to learn the facts from a ground breaking study concerning workers compensation(work comp) and carpal tunnel surgery.

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Although a great deal of
CONTROVERSY
exist regarding CTS and work comp issues and whether
it is caused by work?
Carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the most "reported work-related" injuries and it's a leading cause of work disability.

Researchers Yawn and Kurland at Emory University studied patients from a single community who had
CARPAL TUNNEL SURGERY
(AKA carpal tunnel release-(CTR).

They compared the duration of symptoms and the severity of nerve damage before the person had surgery among two groups.

A group that WAS getting worker's compensation and a group that WAS NOT getting worker's compensation.

Work comp and carpal tunnel surgery

The study looked at 131 patients who had a total of 187 carpal tunnel releases done by one surgeon (Obviously some patients had 2 CTR's, one for each hand). The group that was not getting workers comp endured the symptoms longer than the workers comp group before they had the surgery done.My opinion is that if you know you are going to have to pay for a relatively expensive surgery (about $7,900) out of your own pocket (even with insurance and co-pays) Then you might be willing to try conservative or
NON-SURGICAL TREATMENTS
a little longer, (which are a lot less expensive!)

You might be thinking....well, maybe the workers comp group had more severe carpal tunnel cases, so they needed to have surgery sooner? However, the opposite was true. A smaller proportion of workers comp patients had severe CTS cases(determined by
EMG/NCS
tests). Also, the workers comp group had a larger portion of "borderline" carpal tunnel syndrome cases (i.e. borderline EMG/NCS findings...in other words right on the edge of being normal)

This carpal tunnel surgery and work comp study concluded that people with "work-related" CTS appeared to receive carpal tunnel surgery for CTS earlier than people whose CTS was not covered by workers comp.